A liquid crystal display (hereinafter, also referred to as “LCD”) is an apparatus that displays characters and images using electro-optical properties of liquid crystal molecules. In the LCD, a liquid crystal panel in which polarizing plates are arranged on both sides of a liquid crystal cell is generally installed.
The polarizing plate has a polarizer. As the polarizer, a polyvinyl-alcohol-based drawn film dyed with a dichroic material is widely used. Individual polarizing plates arranged on both sides of the liquid crystal cell in such a manner that the cell is sandwiched between the polarizing plates are usually arranged to make the absorption axes of their polarizers perpendicular to each other.
The liquid crystal panel makes it possible to display a black image when no voltage is applied to the panel in the case where its liquid crystal cell is in a normally black mode.
Incidentally, LCD generally has a problem that a contrast ratio in oblique directions is low. In order to solve this problem, the liquid crystal panel is provided with a retardation film (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
However, in the market, the performance of LCD is strongly desired to be made higher. In other words, a liquid crystal display exhibiting a higher contrast ratio, which makes it possible to cause characters or images to be vividly viewed from oblique directions is desired.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent No. 3648240